Spanish conquest of Nicaragua

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The Spanish conquest of Nicaragua was the campaign undertaken by the Spanish conquistadores and their Tlaxcaltec allies against the natives of the territory now incorporated into the modern Central American republic of Nicaragua during the colonisation of the Americas.^[1][2] Before European contact in the early 16th century, Nicaragua was inhabited by a number of indigenous peoples. The west was inhabited by Mesoamerican groups such as the Nicarao, the Chorotega, and the Subtiaba. The Nicarao are a Nahua people closely related to the Mexica of Mexico.^[3] The Chorotega and the Subtiaba are closely related to the Zapotecs and Mixtecs of Oaxaca, Mexico due to their shared Otomanguean ethnicity.^[4] Other groups included the Matagalpa and the Tacacho, both of which mainly inhabited central Nicaragua.

Gil González Dávila first entered what is now Nicaragua in 1522, with the permission of Pedrarias Dávila, governor of Castilla de Oro, but was driven back to his ships by the Chorotega and the Nicarao, and sailed south into what is now Panama.^[5][6] In 1524, a new expedition led by Francisco Hernández de Córdoba founded the Spanish towns of León and Granada. The western portions of Nicaragua along the Pacific littoral plain received the brunt of the Spanish activity in the territory for the next three decades.^[7] Within a century of the conquest, the native inhabitants had been nearly exterminated due to war against the Spanish and their Tlaxcallan allies, disease, and exportation as slaves.^[8]